Earful for Ellisville city council from upset residents

ELLISVILLE, Mo. (KSDK) - Wednesday night, the drama continued in Ellisville in the battle between an impeached mayor and the city council. Tempers flared over how much money the city has spent, so far, to impeach former mayor Adam Paul.

Before city council meeting could even get started it turned into a free-for-all argument over the agenda.

The city has a newly elected council, and some new members wanted the chance to overturn the previous council's impeachment of Adam Paul. But they were not able to vote on it after the council pulled the item from the agenda on the advice of an attorney hired by the city.

Council members say they may try again to either overturn the impeachment or at least re-instate Paul while he appeals the impeachment in St. Louis County Circuit Court.

Paul was kicked out of office last month on charges of violating the city charter by allegedly over reaching his authority as mayor and for incompetence in conducting city business.

But what seemed to have most people in the packed council chamber Wednesday night the most upset is how much the impeachment is costing Ellisville.

Public records show it's costing not just attorneys' fees, but overtime for police officers, court reporter fees, and $8,000 a public relations firm.

The total, so far, comes to more than $93,000.

Paul says he is not giving up his fight to get his job back and that means the city will likely incur thousands more in costs to defend its decision.

"They're spending an enormous amount of money to remove a mayor," says one of Paul chief supporters Liz Schmidt. "And they are likely to fail miserably," says Schmidt of the appeal in Circuit Court.

Schmidt, and others upset by the expenditures, pointed to the $8,000 for the public relations firm Casey Communications as evidence of wasteful spending on the impeachment. They say the amount is four times the city's annual budget for public relations.

In an informal question and answer session with residents after the council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Matt Pirrello told the crowd he would find out more details about what "pr" the city got for that price.

The city says if the mayor hadn't violated the charter it would have never spent any of the money.